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News & ArtsFriday, October 23, 2009
International A Whole Other World
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:13 AM
Yes, I place some belief in the multiverse theory. As there are soapy bubbles in a kitchen sink, there very well may be billions of bubbling universes in a hyperspace. So, you can imagine my confusion when I read this report a moment ago:
A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.A moment ago, for a split second, I thought I woke up not in the universe whose hard laws made me and all that's around me but in another one, a universe with a completely different state of affairs, laws, and developments. What kind of world is this? How did I get here? A world that has rich people begging to be taxed?The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery.
Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say.
The petition has 44 signatories so far, and will be presented to newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.
1
Faux Incredulousness Doesn't Become You.
Stop caricaturing rich people as the enemy. We've got quite a few Richie Riches here in Seattle who have long been supporters of paying their fair share to improve the social safety net.
This is how normal, intelligent people behave. Why not give it a try, instead of breathlessly hyperbolizing all the time?
Oh, right, it's your job. Carry on.
Stop caricaturing rich people as the enemy. We've got quite a few Richie Riches here in Seattle who have long been supporters of paying their fair share to improve the social safety net.
This is how normal, intelligent people behave. Why not give it a try, instead of breathlessly hyperbolizing all the time?
Oh, right, it's your job. Carry on.
2
Multiple worlds:
Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin, physicists at Stanford just announced a week ago that they'd come up with a formula to describe how many distinct (and here, your definititon may vary) universes are in the multiverse, which is around 10^10^10^7. As far as humans are concerned, the number is somewhat less, something like 10^10^16.
That's based on their estimate of the total possible amount of stored bits of information our brains are capable of holding, and therefore "a limit on the number of different locally distinguishable geometries determined mostly by our ability to distinguish between different universes and to remember our results."
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1589
Meanwhile, within the distinct boundaries of our universe, at a conference on the search for exoplanets, at the Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade in Portugal this week, it was announced that 32 new planets outside of our solar system had been discovered with HARPS, (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher), at the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. All of these new exoplanets are orbiting stars in our sky invisible to the naked eye.
Journalists at the conference were reportedly unimpressed with the announcement, having apparently hoped for a more spectacular announcement than "just" another three dozen new worlds.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200…
Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin, physicists at Stanford just announced a week ago that they'd come up with a formula to describe how many distinct (and here, your definititon may vary) universes are in the multiverse, which is around 10^10^10^7. As far as humans are concerned, the number is somewhat less, something like 10^10^16.
That's based on their estimate of the total possible amount of stored bits of information our brains are capable of holding, and therefore "a limit on the number of different locally distinguishable geometries determined mostly by our ability to distinguish between different universes and to remember our results."
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1589
Meanwhile, within the distinct boundaries of our universe, at a conference on the search for exoplanets, at the Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade in Portugal this week, it was announced that 32 new planets outside of our solar system had been discovered with HARPS, (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher), at the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. All of these new exoplanets are orbiting stars in our sky invisible to the naked eye.
Journalists at the conference were reportedly unimpressed with the announcement, having apparently hoped for a more spectacular announcement than "just" another three dozen new worlds.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200…
3
#1: You mean like Tim Eyman, Kemper Freeman, Frank Blethlen, Susan Hutchison? Just because Bill Gates is a philanthropist doesn't mean most rich businesspeople are. No, donating to the Discovery Institute or the Bush campaign doesn't count.
4
Alternative possibility: the German rich have found out there is an as yet unrevealed plan to impose a 10% wealth tax for 5 years and this is a way to mitigate the damage.
5
Bill Gates Sr. has been advocating a high-incomes tax for WA for a while:
http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/402897_…
Bill Gates Sr. has been advocating a high-incomes tax for WA for a while:
http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/402897_…
7
This other world is called "the rest of the industrialized world," a/k/a/ "Europe."
Half the economy controlled by the state, national health care, etc. blah blah blah, why not inform us as to all these real world achievements instead of musing about HEgel and boobs and Amanda and giving random thoughts about globalization that have no conenction with real history, facts, economics, or actual class struggle, which, over in Europe, the working people have largely won, in contrast to here, where our Democrats barely even fight.
Example: great news in the health care debate recently with public option, barely noticed on alt. hipster media outlets like Slog.
They're going to tell conservadems to vote for cloture then vote against public option if they must, and pass it through on a partisan basis, utterly repudiating the Obama line at the start of sitting down with insurers and being bipartisan. What a waste of tiem that was. And now it's folks like Schumer and Weeiner and Grayson leading us, NOT OBAMA who's not out in public making a big deal about public option. He's sort of blase about it.
What if he had tried to organize us in montana and maine and louisiana to be for it? what if he had expended his political capital for it the last six months? Maybe instead of the skinny public option we're going to get which will only allow 12 million people into it, we'd have a real one.
Because it's very simple how you get to these places: you need political leaders, like thelabor and social democratic and communist parties in Europe, who say basically fuck the rich instead of let's sit down with insurers. Ain't no big freaking mystery at all. Just a matter of balls.
Half the economy controlled by the state, national health care, etc. blah blah blah, why not inform us as to all these real world achievements instead of musing about HEgel and boobs and Amanda and giving random thoughts about globalization that have no conenction with real history, facts, economics, or actual class struggle, which, over in Europe, the working people have largely won, in contrast to here, where our Democrats barely even fight.
Example: great news in the health care debate recently with public option, barely noticed on alt. hipster media outlets like Slog.
They're going to tell conservadems to vote for cloture then vote against public option if they must, and pass it through on a partisan basis, utterly repudiating the Obama line at the start of sitting down with insurers and being bipartisan. What a waste of tiem that was. And now it's folks like Schumer and Weeiner and Grayson leading us, NOT OBAMA who's not out in public making a big deal about public option. He's sort of blase about it.
What if he had tried to organize us in montana and maine and louisiana to be for it? what if he had expended his political capital for it the last six months? Maybe instead of the skinny public option we're going to get which will only allow 12 million people into it, we'd have a real one.
Because it's very simple how you get to these places: you need political leaders, like thelabor and social democratic and communist parties in Europe, who say basically fuck the rich instead of let's sit down with insurers. Ain't no big freaking mystery at all. Just a matter of balls.
8
Fourty-fucking-four signatures! I bet they could could collect more than that for an initiative to restore Goering as President of the Reichstag. Yes, it's pretty sad what passes for news these days.
9
Ian said he dreamed of a world where he was wearing a Yakuza businessman's outfit and I was part of a team of hired assassins he was in.
10
Try visiting any European country and you'll see the damage the Repugs and Dems have done here once you return. In Germany you can ride reliable high speed public transportation past wind turbines and solar panel covered homes and factories. More enlightened nations build their infrastructures rather than feeding a bloated military-industrial complex
11
More enlightened nations build their infrastructures rather than feeding a bloated military-industrial complex
... while at the same time taking advantage of Uncle Sam's free protection. Without it, the balance of power in Europe and the relationship between Germany and Russia would be rather different. For the record, there are currently 60,000 American troops in Germany.
... while at the same time taking advantage of Uncle Sam's free protection. Without it, the balance of power in Europe and the relationship between Germany and Russia would be rather different. For the record, there are currently 60,000 American troops in Germany.
12
It's pretty well known within Political Science that, even in America, the ultra-rich can be surprisingly progressive in their politics, even on tax politics. One could theorize that at some point, you have so much fucking money that it doesn't matter any more, and the utility gained from having one more dollar is less than the utility gained from giving to a charity or helping your fellow countrymen.
When it comes to extremely regressive tax policy, the ones that you have to watch out for are ALWAYS the middle/upper-middle class. $60,000-90,000 households tend to be VERY conservative with their money.
When it comes to extremely regressive tax policy, the ones that you have to watch out for are ALWAYS the middle/upper-middle class. $60,000-90,000 households tend to be VERY conservative with their money.
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